This week we had a rather wide array of experiences at the Kindering center.  For example, the team had an attempt at problem solving, although it didn’t quite go as planned.  We had noticed that in previous weeks two of the less active girls seems to bring out the energy in each other when playing side by side.  This week, on Thursday, we decided to see if we could try to wake one of the girls up a little bit by placing the two together – this one student was incredibly drowsy and unresponsive during the entire class, so we had hoped that we might get some more reaction out of her if she was paired with the other quiet child.  However, we did not observe any change in energy levels in either student.  To tell the truth, neither one is very energetic in class – even when amplifying each other’s energy, they are still quiet at best on a good day – but it worth an attempt.

            Job specific skills, just like last week, were a surprise part of Thursday’s class.  In a position like Kindering, one must have one’s wits about oneself – one child, at snack time, was overly eager to eat and would not take small bites of his food.  We tried to cut his food into little pieces, but he would just put them all in his mouth at once.  As the closest supervisor, it became my responsibility to keep him from choking.  This was a delicate job, since I couldn’t tell whether he intended to take small bites or not until the food was halfway in his mouth already, at which point I had to yank the rest of it out.  I had never done such a thing before, and I was at first not very confident in my skill in such a delicate job, but it warms me that the specialists trust me to keep a child from choking on his food.  I’m just grateful that I didn’t freeze up and fail to do my job.

            Character development was one of the most prominent aspects of my week at Kindering.  One of the children was incredibly reluctant to leave his mother and much crying and tantrums ensued after she left him for class.  Despite what we had been told about handling tantrums, and despite the fact that the specific goal for this particular child this week was self-soothing, it took all of my control to keep myself from rushing to him and trying to comfort him.  I didn’t know before just how little self-control I had in this area, but being firm is certainly something I have to work on.

            Lastly, teamwork had a role at my time on site this week, except this time, the collaboration was with the mother of one of the children.  I spoke with the mother of the child I wrote about before, the drowsy one, just before that class.  She and I have been discussing how to bring the student out of her shell in class, and at the end of Thursday’s session, I reported back to her about her daughter’s progress and we spoke about her at length, comparing our observations – mine of the child when at Kindering and her mother’s of her daughter when at home.  So far, we have managed to make some progress (although not this Thursday, unfortunately), and I hope to continue to do so in the future.